Sure, money talks. But on this blog, it also gabs.

Tag Archives: Love

Something miraculous happened today. It’s not epic, like a baby being born or a horrific train derailment that everyone walks away from.

Nope. It’s a tiny miracle. But it’s all mine.

I paid off my car loan.

I began this year with two financial goals. Pay off my student loan (check), and pay off my car loan (just checked). It’s only April.

This. Is. A. Miracle.

And so, it’s time for me to shutter this shop. Writing Cashgab was an incredible journey for me. It was my catalyst for real change. I recently found an email that I sent to Money Mentors (highly recommended, btw) in 2009. It wasn’t until I started writing this blog in early 2012 that my financial life started to blossom. I learned so much about personal finance, such as how to manage a credit card like a Big Girl and the importance of planned spending savings. I also know that I inspired other people to get their financial houses in order. I know this because they wrote me emails, shared comments on my posts, and told me in whispered tones over coffee.

I can’t say that I will never get in financial dire straights again. But I can say that I know how to get out of it if I do: start talking.

It’s that simple. Tell people. Ask for help. Talk about what you’re doing to change. Make yourself accountable.

So many of our money issues are rooted in shame. If you talk about something, you take the stigma away. Ditch your shame.

Gab.

~HS

PS For my beloved regular readers, you are few but you are mighty. Please read my new blog of dispatches from the ‘burbs: Setka in the Suburbs. Money talk will be at a minimum. XO

I’ve already written about who pays the bill. But when it came to romantic dinners, I chickened out. While I was reading up on who should pick up the tab on a first (presumably heterosexual) date, I stumbled across a whole bunch of misogynist comments and posts. It freaked me out. I can’t believe that some men hate women so much.

Now, I’m writing this lil column for CBC, and I feel emboldened by having the Canadian taxpayers to answer to for my work. So I decided to write specifically about female/male relationships and ask the question about who should foot the bill between them.

Here’s a shorter version of my upcoming CBC column. It’s not afraid to answer the tough questions like: who pays the bill on a date?

Photo: Luba V Nel/Dreamstime Images

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Much is being made about the economic power women hold these days. Not all women, of course. Across the board, men still out-earn women. Stats Canada data states that the gender wage gap continues to see women earning 70 per cent of what men earn on average annually.

So the question must be asked: what’s a gal to do when the bill comes?

Logically, whoever makes the most money should pay, right? Men once held all the economic cards and all the power, but they also picked up the tab. Fair or not, it was a trade-off.

But now what? If you out-earn your new romantic partner, should you wrestle the cheque away from him – or her – based entirely on that assumption?

I don’t know the answer, so I consulted someone who would. Cara Anderson runs a speed dating service called Six Minute Dates and has been a dating expert for five years.

She says we’re currently existing in a “dating vortex” where no one knows their role. “It’s murky water,” she says.

However, Anderson’s definitive rule is this: “the person that asks pays.” It should be relied on in 99 of 100 situations, she says. Women who ask men out should expect to pay, and she says splitting the bill just isn’t sexy.

Anderson is so clear in her position that I start to feel confident. We are in a new age where men and women are economic equals, even at the dinner table. That is until Anderson adds this: “My experience,” she says, “has been that when women ask men out, it doesn’t lead to anything long term.” In order to feel masculine, most men, Anderson says, need to ask women out, and pay for the date.

This doesn’t sit well with Anderson, or me for that matter. She says it makes her stomach turn, especially when a photo in her office of feminist Gloria Steinem catches her eye. “I hope for something better in the future,” Anderson says.

I’m just glad I’m not currently on the dating scene, although these perils aren’t unfamiliar. My partner is a chef, and I am a mid-level manager who writes on the side. All told, I earn more. I also carry more economic responsibility in our household, partially because the mortgage is mine and I have a child from a previous relationship. But it’s also because I make more money than him.

When we go out for dinner – and we do a lot, because he’s a chef – I ask him to order for me (again, he’s a chef), but I feel awkward when he pays. I like it, and I kind of feel like it balances out our financial world a bit, if not our emotional one. Yet somehow, it still makes me queasy, like I’m taking more than my share.

We’re not yet at the point where his money and my money add up to our money. It will be the last thing we merge, and I doubt it will ever be to the degree that my parents, and even some of my peers, pool their finances. But like Anderson, I hope for something better in the future.

Until then, I’ll just have to stomach all the uncertainty I feel every time the cheque comes.

~

What do you think? Does it matter who pays the bill? And does it matter who makes more money?